Cruel Clocks
by Masters of Heartbreak
Summary: He always taught me everything I needed to know to be alive and although I couldn't feel emotion, he tried to explain happiness and sorrow to me. But one thing I learned on my own was that I could never die. Unlike my only companion of a little over twenty years, I was to live for eternity...Alone.


**_A/N: Okay, so this one was just me, MadHatterLilith. I really loved this song, especially Zoobah and Juby's English fandubs so...I cried, wrote this and tried not to cry some more._**

**_I own nothing and you might be able to tell that I ship Kaito/Miku. I mean, they always turn out that way. But they're not my vocaloid OTP._**

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**_Cruel Clocks_**

**_By: MadHatterLilith_**

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_The curiosity was more a slow burn than an itch or mere feeling. Finally, he could stand it any longer and took the key to open the back of the clock. He had no family but something about the clock told him not to open it. The lock finally clicked and the door creaked open. He peered inside, almost scared of what he might find._

_His face flushed and his eyes widened when he saw her, a girl with long, light blue-green hair curled up with her knees to her chest and her eyes closed in a quiet, death-like sleep. Her beautiful curtain of hair was parted so the keyhole in her neck was obvious._

_Hands trembling, he wound her up with the key…And she opened her eyes._

* * *

My arm, which usually creaked, was raised; a pipe in my hand, ready to destroy what my only companion had spent so long creating. It made no sense, this pain inside of her. I wasn't human. I shouldn't feel this. And yet the dull, cutting pain was there, in my heart.

The clock had ticked by; reminding me that time could never stop and I couldn't just stop living... And even now, as the broken gears were under my feet, it seemed to mock me. I closed my eyes…

And there it was, that all too radiant, everlasting smile.

* * *

He was a sickly child and always alone. But I stayed by him, at his request, so he'd never be lonely. I was a cold, unfeeling machine, and yet he called me his friend. Twenty years went by, not quickly nor slowly but how they should go, one day after the next. And he grew from a boy to a man as all humans do.

But I stayed the same, not a single detail changing from the moment I was first wound up, becoming alive.

He got a job constructing a clock tower, one magnificent enough to bring people from miles to see. That was no surprise. His skills as an architect and clock maker were well known and often were spoken highly of.

I wasn't scared. I couldn't feel fear but he still gave my hand a reassuring squeeze as they walked into the already half completed building, our fingers intertwined. "This is where we'll live." He had told me, smiling.

I had no idea at the time that the reason they hid themselves away in that tower was that I was endangering him by just existing.

"Where is it?!" A man yelled at the clock maker. "Where is that abomination against God?!" He had told me to hide and even as they who called themselves men of God beat the man who committed no crime, I watched from the cabinets.

He'd taught me everything I'd ever need in life. There were things that would make her happy if she was human and there were things that would make her sad. He taught me about both of those even though I could never understand.

But the thing that I learned that day was that I couldn't die, unlike him. When cut, I didn't bleed. And yet, here he was, his skull badly fractured, blinded by the incident, lied there in his own red blood. It was almost proof that we could never belong in the same world.

He was mortal and I was an artificial life that could never know the pain or fear of death.

I bandaged his eyes that night. He couldn't see her face anymore. He said that was the most painful thing of all but I didn't understand how or why. The shouts from below as more men came to the tower seemed to make him upset. As I was about to stand up and hide again, he pulled me close and held me between warm arms, his embrace tender and gentle.

Even though my body was cold and had no blood flowing through, I still felt his body warmth…

Warm teardrops hit my shoulder, having soaked through the bandages, and I didn't know what was going on until he put something in my hands and pushed me into the same clock he first found me, the mechanical girl, in. I watched from a crack as he refused to give her up and they cut him down and for a brief moment, I felt something.

Pain?

My eyes opened and as I opened my fist, seeing what he gave me right before his death. My eyes were fixed on the key, the same that fit in my neck and gave me the ability to live. Maybe…I somehow felt a little warmer. I went to his body as it grew colder to the touch, even in the summer air.

I touched the key to his neck, almost praying it would work. But I knew that the reason he gave it to me was to help me live on even though he knew that he couldn't. That painful feeling grew and whatever warmth I had been feeling vanished, turning to ice instead. My arms fell to my sides and I didn't know what to do.

Everything seemed wrong now.

I didn't notice the ring until it rolled the floor, gleaming golden. I glanced at it and recognized it immediately. But with a glance to his hand, I realized it wasn't his new ring, a golden band, but a matching one. A matching golden band he wanted to give to me…?

Rising slowly, I walked over to it in tiny steps, and knelled to pick it up. Engraved on it was the name he gave me: _Miku_.

And next to my name was his last message to me.

"_I love you."_

The pain remained but it wasn't as sharp and painful but more like a dull blade. That last message was also a way to teach me two last lessons:

The first, what happiness means and feels like. My legs gave out under me and tears trickled down from my eyes, something that should have been impossible for me, as I put the ring on my finger and held that hand close to my chest.

The second was one he was teaching me almost his whole life. He taught me how it felt to love and be loved. I loved him…I hadn't realized it until I felt the pain of losing him to death but I'd always loved him. I felt cold without his warmth and wished I could be with him again.

These emotions were impossible for me, yet there they were. The lower floors of the tower were burning and I could smell the smoke but I wanted to stay by his side. The raging flames soon burned through the supports and it all began to crumble.

And as it fell, I prayed. I prayed to be with Kaito, my love and only friend.

_The gates of the afterlife closing behind them, the pair looked back, a man with blue hair and a young woman. Their hands together, fingers intertwined and gold rings touching, held them together as they turned back to the eternal, misty path ahead. _

_Both smiled, now with the one they loved, forever. And now, they belonged in the same world. Human or machine, both had souls and both would be, in a sense, alive…_

_Eternally._


End file.
